Army C-Rations

I bought Spam in a can the other day. I wanted to make a sandwich and it had been quite awhile since I made a Spam sandwich. When I first began eating Spam, I was in the Army way back in the 60’s. Today there must be at least a dozen varieties – pepper, jalapeño, smoked, bacon are the ones that come quickly to mind. This got me to thinking about Army C-rations. Today there’s the MRE, or Meal, Ready-To-Eat. But when I went to the field it was the good, old C-ration in a can.

The C-ration came in a flimsy cardboard box about the size of a Girl Scout Cookie box only it opened on the top along the long end of the box. It was actually a flap that had the name of the meal on it. So if you wanted a particular meal you could pick it out. My personal favorites were Chopped Eggs and Ham for breakfast and Turkey Loaf for dinner. When I was a company commander my driver would always ensure that I got my choice, even though the officers ate after the soldiers, and the commander ate last. The thought was that if the food ran out, the commander would suffer along with any others who didn’t get to eat.

To avoid an argument, or even a stampede for the boxes when the First Sergeant brought the “C’s” to the field for distribution, he would slash open the large case holding about 12 individual boxes or meals and then flip it over on its top. That way, no one could see what was printed on the meal box top. But, soldiers quickly memorized where their favorites were. You just to be sure that Top flipped the box in the right way!

Opening the cans was easy because each box contained several flat can openers, each of which we called a P-38. The official name was “Opener, Can, Hand, Folding, Type 1”. You can see why we all called them by the former.

Of course, if you ate C’s for several days you were sure to get constipated. That was good since you got 22 pieces of toilet paper in each meal. What else was in the ration?

You'll just have to wait until another time…

Cambria 13